yellowstone one-a-days: day 4

beyond the geysers, the major draw of yellowstone has always been its wildlife. sure it’s got lakes and mountains, but Grand Tetons just does lakes+mountains so much better. the subtleties of the yellowstone landscape also guarantee much better places to sight animals from the road, so you can scream at whoever’s driving to stop the car, and then get out and grab some sweet shots.

unfortunately, Mr. Murphy has a few laws about wildlife photography:

the wildlife is always backlit. it’s as if animals know where the road is, relative to the sun, and they will only hang out in a way that they come between the sun and your camera sensor

the wildlife is always rump first. maybe they can smell us and the experience is unappealing. maybe they enjoy flaunting what their mama gave ’em. whatever the reason, animals like to exhibit their business end to the camera whenever possible

wildlife enjoys being out at sunrise and sunset. supposedly this evolved to protect them from predation. given that predatory animals have better night vision than a special forces commando, I don’t see the real benefit here. all it really does is increase the probability that they will be hit by 12-ton buses carrying a raft of taiwanese people

wildlife have ADHD. someone put ritalin in the water already, please. animals are the jumpiest S.O.B.s I’ve ever seen, always twitching and leaping and crouching and running about. not enough homework? not enough home discipline? something should be done about this.

anyway, shot this one on the 5DII with the BigmOS which tina grabbed it on the T2i with the Little Sigmonster. I’ll post a comparison sometime, but I’ll tell you right now, the 150-500 is unlikely to represent well against its svelte sibling. there’s definitely going to be a review/comparison one the one-a-days are done.

if I had chimped a little more I probably would have realized I could knock the ISO down to 1600 and still grab it at 1/1000 … just not quick enough or sure enough yet. I think I improved as the trip went on, however.